Why so grindy?

[arglefargle]

I was wondering why turbine makes DDO so grindy.

I have been trying to get either epic envenomed blades, or earth alchemical shortswords for my drow melee FvS as trash weapons. After 40 runs of epic lords of dust, I have seen just one single seal of the envenomed blade drop. Since you can only loot a chest 7 times a week, thats 40 days to get one sword, assuming you run the quest once a day.

Why? I can run this quest in my sleep. It is incredibly easy, even on epic elite (which for some reason does not drop seals - go figure). I think I have earned my epic sword based on the merit of mastery of the quest, but I don't even have one completed - let alone a pair.

Can we get the epic items to just drop from the chest and do away with all this shard/seal/scroll nonsense? There is no point of this archaic system of progression anymore.

Also on a side note, if someone can tell me of another good CC shortsword besides epic envenomed blade or alchemical earth shortsword, that would be amazing.

[Thrudh]

Also on a side note, if someone can tell me of another good CC shortsword besides epic envenomed blade or alchemical earth shortsword, that would be amazing.

Blade of the High Priestess is pretty nice

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Blade_o...High_Priestess

The nice thing is that it drains wisdom, which means whatever you are fighting keeps getting it's will save lowered... so the improved paralyzing WILL hit sooner or later...

Only good on epic normal and epic hard though... epic elite, stat damage doesn't work.

[Ape_Man]

When/if you get everything you want you lose the desire to play the game other than running around the marketplace randomly sneak-humping halflings.

Think of the halflings.

[NytCrawlr]

When/if you get everything you want you lose the desire to play the game other than running around the marketplace randomly sneak-humping halflings.

Think of the halflings.

Hopefully when they finally bring in gnomes we can start sneak-humping them. Gives us something new to do.

[Ape_Man]

Hopefully when they finally bring in gnomes we can start sneak-humping them. Gives us something new to do.

/win

[Ape_Man]

I'll take a rare break from trolling to make a "serious" comment.

The grind in the "old" DDO was appropriate considering how long it took for stuff to get out-dated. For TWFers your Greensteel weapons from level 16 were still wonderful until U14 so that's what . . . 3 years? If it took you a few months to get weapons you'll be buried in it's worthwhile.

DDO respected the time you spent in pursuit and rarely invalidated it but releases new shinies every patch that made the old shinies meh.

Now? All the old stuff is junk. Twink items for TRs at best. I mean who even runs RR for Dragontouched armor for example?

Expect to re-gear your toons every update or two, that's the way it is since the new loot people took over.

That would be okay if the drop-rates weren't so friggin abysmal. I predict at the rate I'm pulling stuff for my regearing I'll be done about 3 months after the new expansion comes out and I'll have to redo everything anyway.

Welcome to the hamster wheel, have a nice day.

[SealedInSong]

and sunk cost.

If you sink a lot of time into farming something and still don't get it, I'd suggest that you just abandon it in favor of things that you 100% need and/or have a concrete value--i.e. farming plat, scales, mnemonics, TRing, etc.

That said, if you do think that you 100% need said item and you aren't getting it, just consider how many people are out there that may have thought they 100% needed a Ring of Spell Storing or an epic Sword of Shadows/Thornlord seal or Litany of the Dead trinket and haven't gotten it in *years*.

Sometimes we just have to accept the odds and find fun where we can. I personally am not going to let 200+ runs of eVoN with no eSoS shard weigh me down... the game is too great in other respects to let a single piece of gear ruin it for you.

That said, totally feel for you, and I suggest that you try and farm out Celestia. It has quite a bit to offer...and if you combine it with (flawless) black dragonscale you get most of what you want from the eEnvenomed and even more, I'd think.

Also consider the Rebellion shortsword from the new Fall of Truth raid.

I'm not saying that you have any better odds and find these, as again, it's all random, but at the very least you might find that you luck out with those and maybe one day you'll get lucky with eEnvenomed when you least expect it.

[slimkj]

It's arguable these days with the recent-ish move to more grindy mechanics, but some would say you've picked the worst, lottery-style loot mechanic to indulge in. Grind is up in lots of ways though. Ignore it.

[Devachan]

Argle, you may already know this, however LOD only drops seals on epic normal. So for your envenomed seal you need to farm EN. Farm EE for the shard.

The bugged drop rates in this chain are detailed quite well in certain threads on the forums.

[Mastikator]

What makes it grindy is people's obsession with having THE BEST equipment, instead of the second best (which is easily acquired).
The most grindy thing I did recently was getting the Eyes of Stone about 5 times on normal to get the Stonedust Wraps. If you count zerging through quests as grinding for xp then I suppose I grind a lot, but it feels like I make a lot more progress when I xp grind than when I loot-grind.

[Artrish]

DDO makes it so grindy, because grind is the game. If you do a handfull of quests to get your gear, then you would have a week of gearing up, then a week or two to run all the content with said gear. Then where to? Repeat the content, certainly not for gear as you would have it, perhaps for, as fun as repetition without a reward you can make for yourself?

There are a lot of moments where i dislike the length of the grind for things myself. I cannot progress my main charcter at the moment for what will tally up to 3 months due to waiting out timers, and that is with knowing there is an end to the grind for a particular goal on him.

It is part of an online universe they are creating. So big and varied, that you cannot get everything done, just a few things to keep you occupied and immersed in it.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Since you can only loot a chest 7 times a week

Per character.

thats 40 days to get one sword

so if you had 10 characters, how long would it take? what if you had 40?

[Miow]

I'll take a rare break from trolling to make a "serious" comment.

The grind in the "old" DDO was appropriate considering how long it took for stuff to get out-dated. For TWFers your Greensteel weapons from level 16 were still wonderful until U14 so that's what . . . 3 years? If it took you a few months to get weapons you'll be buried in it's worthwhile.

DDO respected the time you spent in pursuit and rarely invalidated it but releases new shinies every patch that made the old shinies meh.

Now? All the old stuff is junk. Twink items for TRs at best. I mean who even runs RR for Dragontouched armor for example?

Expect to re-gear your toons every update or two, that's the way it is since the new loot people took over.

That would be okay if the drop-rates weren't so friggin abysmal. I predict at the rate I'm pulling stuff for my regearing I'll be done about 3 months after the new expansion comes out and I'll have to redo everything anyway.

Welcome to the hamster wheel, have a nice day.

Wow pretty much me and a friend were talking yesterday and we came to the same conclusion, we just don't care anymore about getting the newest items...not worth the work or money if you pay tp for them. We pickup and use what we can now making small twinks here and there. No more hamster wheels for us.

[legendlore]

Per character.



so if you had 10 characters, how long would it take? what if you had 40?

The same amount of time unless you have unlimited gaming time. No matter the amount of characters the average amount of runs stays the same (not that it matters since it's a complete lottery each time).

Another thing to consider is also that in my experience 40 runs to get what you want is extremely lucky. Drop rates are estimated at 3% for the chain, 16 items all share same chests so 0,1875% chance (or ~1 in 533) each time a chest is opened to get what you want. 2 seal chests (+Bastion, that I'd estimate have about 10% chance of spawning) in quest so 533/2,1 chests =253,8 runs to get one of the epic pieces you need.

I tried to get the epic darkstorm helm from there since it was released and have since revised my gear until this chains bugs/drop rates or shard seal system is fixed.

[starhawk_6699]

The most grindy thing I did recently was getting the Eyes of Stone about 5 times on normal to get the Stonedust Wraps.

Took me 18 time on hard thru Eyes to get the Stonedust Wraps on Cannith, been thru it 20 times on hard on Thelanis and still don't have them. Wish they would put some kind of counter on these quests so that after say 10 runs you would get a list of all items to choose from. Would make it ALOT less frustrating to know that eventually get what you are after.

[Qhualor]

Took me 18 time on hard thru Eyes to get the Stonedust Wraps on Cannith, been thru it 20 times on hard on Thelanis and still don't have them. Wish they would put some kind of counter on these quests so that after say 10 runs you would get a list of all items to choose from. Would make it ALOT less frustrating to know that eventually get what you are after.

If there was a counter, farming for gear would be easy and people would have all the loot that they want in no time. Look at what happened to ioun stones and Mindsunder loot. People run those quests zerg style on casual for what they want. The value of ioun stones dropped considerably after that change.

[rimble]

When/if you get everything you want you lose the desire to play the game other than running around the marketplace randomly sneak-humping halflings.

Yeah, I end up the opposite though...since I can never get what I want, I just go right to the sneak-humping.

I mean, another run at EE Ivy Wraps with a .005% chance of getting them, or 100% chance of sneak-humping?

[Ape_Man]

The only saving grace for the new loot mechanics are that non-raid loot isn't bound and can be traded.

[rimble]

The only saving grace for the new loot mechanics are that non-raid loot isn't bound and can be traded.

Yeah, then I just grind scales instead...I guess at least you're making some sort of progress then at least...assuming people bother to farm up the item you want (of course GH ones are readily available).

These rare drops from rare encounters (Ivy Wraps as example) are some serious BS.

Anyways, I'm gonna keep the wallet closed (even though I'm due for a TP purchase) until we know more about the future. All we've gotten to preview are the so-called 'money grabs'. Don't want to shell out cash in the HOPES that coolness is coming--though to be fair, as often as they've made me doubt them in the past, they often pull through in the end...I'm just waiting for the one last time when the beancounters REALLY have control, then it's all over.

[Ape_Man]

What scales have any value? Serious question.

Reds haven't been rare in ages and the black armor is BETTER than the red.

Greens . . . there are better things for the body slot.

White/black/blue . . . good drop rates means people will be swimming in scales.